Navy promotes Woodstock native to commanding officer

The last time Kurt Kyle was in the newspaper, he never would have guessed the next time would be for this.

The last time was in 1995 when Kyle, a Woodstock native, was a senior at the United States Naval Academy. The Northwest Herald wrote a feature on him as his collegiate wrestling career wound down.

“I never thought in a million years that I’d still be in the Navy,” Kyle, 39, said last week from his base in Sunrise, Fla., just north of Miami.

“But I’ve just enjoyed every tour,” he continued. “I think my favorite part of the job is I get the honor and privilege of having a bunch of fine young Americans working for me – people who’ve volunteered to serve our country.”

Kyle’s military career took its next step late last month when he was promoted to commanding officer of the naval recruiting district in southern Florida and the Caribbean. He’ll spend time traveling around to stations across the southern portion of the state and to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, checking that each is recruiting with similar fairness and integrity, he said.

It’s a responsibility he and his crew don’t take lightly. Only about 25 percent of them will spend their entire careers recruiting. For most, like Kyle, they’re sending recruits to ships they’ve served on themselves and might very well return to in the future.

“I have input and say into who we’re bringing into the Navy,” Kyle said. “So making sure that all my peers that are serving on ships right now, that I’m sending them the best possible [sailor] to serve our country.”

Kyle has been all over the place through the years. He served in San Diego, where he met his wife, Robyn. He’s been deployed in Yokosuka, Japan. He’s done training for ships that were sent over during the Gulf War, and he was a training officer for the task force that responded after 9/11.

His first position was as a communications officer aboard the USS Leftwich in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. His mom enjoyed that.